


Family

by pillow forts (pyroooah)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Character Death, Character Development, Gen, Legacies, Time Travel, Young Team Tobirama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 00:07:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29990898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyroooah/pseuds/pillow%20forts
Summary: “It means the will of fire,” Kagami said slowly, after he heard Shisui’s account. “Our sensei taught us what it means.”And Shisui glanced some distance away where an empty grave of Grandfather’s sensei lay, and it was littered with cherry blossoms. Grandfather liked to visit her grave now and then, and Shisui used to toddle after him. Everytime he did, there were fresh flowers.“Like… your teammates are your family?” Shisui asked slowly.Grandfather smiled at him.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Shimura Danzou, Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Kagami, Shimura Danzou & Uchiha Shisui
Comments: 9
Kudos: 48





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [riashishiria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/riashishiria/gifts).



"You wanna be Hokage?" Sensei asked him one sunny day. "That's quite the dream." It was sunnier in his memories. 

They were watching Kagami and Hiruzen sparring. He glanced up at his sensei, who had her hand on her hip.

"You don't think I could?" 

"I mean," she said with a shrug. "If Madara's Hokage, anyone can be."

She said strange things like that sometimes. Like, sometimes she didn't approve of the current Konoha administration. Sometimes, she'd get a far-away look in her eye when she watched the village growing and developing. Sometimes, she'd just disappear for days. Sensei said strange things, and she walked and talked as if she belonged to another world. 

"What I mean is," she backtracked. "I think you would make a great Hokage, but you've got years ahead of you. I think your friends could help you along that journey!" 

"Hiruzen is my rival," he said.

"Right," she said with a laugh. "But he's still your closest friend." She ruffled his hair. 

Danzo pushed off her arm in annoyance, and he glared at Hiruzen who was grinning brightly at Kagami after their spar. 

.

* * *

His late father told him that emotions didn’t belong on a shinobi’s face or body. Don't laugh. Don't express joy. Don't express anger. Don't fear. Be controlled on the battlefield. 

But then Sakura-sensei showed up, and she changed everything for him, because she was the brightest shinobi he’d ever seen. She smiled, laughed a lot and joked. On the battlefield, she had a feral look on her face as she slammed her foot down and shattered the world apart. 

“Why does everyone wanna be Hokage?” she asked him. They were sitting in front of a bonfire in a cave, and the sun had long set, and their fish was roasting. It was a mission located in the Land of Fire, but there were whispers of war over the horizon. She leaned back, looking up at the stars, and she grinned. “Couldn’t you guys get a another aspiration?” 

“Who _doesn’t_ wanna be the strongest shinobi in the village?” Danzo scoffed at her. “It is a worthy goal.” 

“You could be an academy teacher!” 

“No way! I'm going to be Hokage!" 

“I’m going to beat you to being Hokage, Danzo!” Hiruzen yelled at him over the fire.

“Like you can!” 

“I just want our team to stay together forever and ever as a team!” Kagami said.

Danzo scoffed. Hiruzen grinned at him. “Yeah!”

Sakura-sensei barked with laughter. 

“I want us to stay together and forever and ever too!” 

She had a smile on her face that was so bright and big, that it was like it was forced together. They were attacked and separated shortly after. 

But when Kagami stepped in front of him for a blow, he understood intently what she meant. He carried an injured Kagami on his back to their beacon of light in that storm brewing over the battleground—Sakura-sensei. 

Because Sakura-sensei could heal anything. She was waiting there with Hiruzen.

"Thank you for bringing him, Danzo," she said. Her hand glowed green, and her eyes looked as if they were on fire as she healed him. 

.

* * *

For one brief moment, while Kagami was holding him back from attacking their Shodaime Hokage—Uchiha Madara, he thought about the fact that Sakura-sensei never really seemed to like him. 

Sakura-sensei was now dead, and the man could send anyone out to get her, or her body, or find out what had happened to her. He could send a whole platoon. He could send an accomplished jounin. He could send the three of them! But when they got back from that mission, she left for another one shortly after, and she never returned. She was declared dead. He didn't even declare her missing. He declared her dead.

Madara could send out shinobi to find her. But he didn't. 

“Is there a problem?” Madara asked him. 

Kagami was holding him back, and fingers digging into his arm, as he was wrenching him back.

"Danzo. No," he whispered. 

Madara turned to face him. "Speak up." 

But Sakura-sensei told him that everyone and anyone could be Hokage. 

"She wouldn't want you to do this," Kagami continued whispering. 

Danzo just felt the sinking hopeless feeling all over again.

“No,” he grit out. He swallowed thickly. 

A crowd had gathered around them, and people were watching him worriedly. Madara just gave him one long look, and he left. Somewhere off in the distance, he felt like Senju Tobirama was just watching him through folded arms. They all lied and told half truths, and they treated him like he was another shinobi. Obedient shinobi never questioned anything. 

He collapsed to his knees. 

He heard Hiruzen running up to them. The crowds started to move around them, and he just looked at the ground listlessly. 

.

* * *

“Danzo?” Hiruzen asked him. “Danzo, seriously. Attacking the Shodaime? You should be glad he didn’t order your execution.” 

He was lying on the training ground staring up at the blue skies. He watched as a hawk streamed through the sky.

“What was your plan exactly?” Hiruzen ranted. Kagami was following him. “You wanted to be Hokage, didn’t you? You want to be a missing-nin now? You’ll just get shinobi sent after you! Seriously, Danzo.” 

Sakura-sensei had always told him that he had a journey ahead of him. Two years after she told him that, he now understood what that meant. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to be the strongest man in the village. 

“They won’t do anything,” he said through a choked voice. “Sakura-sensei could still be out there somewhere.” 

Hiruzen and Kagami exchanged glances. 

Because of the three of them, Danzo had gotten attached to her. He just couldn't let go. 

“It’s been two months, Danzo,” Hiruzen said. “We have to… accept the fact. She’s gone.” 

He clenched his hands. “Shut up.” 

“She’s _not_ coming back!” Hiruzen yelled louder. Kagami looked torn between them. 

"Shut up!"

.

* * *

“Danzo,” she would say. She held out her hand to his, and he looked at her oddly. “Hold your hand to mine.” 

He looked at her for a long moment, before he held up his hand to hers, and she aligned her fingertips to his. He looked at her in confusion before she smiled at him. 

“Do you know what it means to be a team? A family?” she asked him. 

He shook his head.

“We understand each other,” she said. “Without words.” 

He could feel her heartbeat, and Danzo didn’t understand at the time. He scoffed. She gave him a light smile. 

.

* * *

He wasn’t twelve anymore, and he was older now, and he remembered Sakura-sensei’s words as he took a fatal blow for Kagami’s grandson—who was unfortunately too young for the horrors of war. 

He didn’t become Hokage. He didn’t live the life pursuing his ambitions. He didn’t live a life his clan would have been proud of—with all their ambition. But as he lay keeled over, his sword impaling his assailant, Danzo thought it was a dignified way to die. But, it wasn't a bad life. 

He slumped back down against the ground, and he looked up at the blue skies over these war-torn lands.

“Boy…” he croaked. 

He held his hand out towards Shisui. 

“Hold your hand out, boy,” he said. Confused and frantic, Shisui held out a hand out to him, while a medic fussed over his wounds. 

Danzo held his hand out, and their fingertips matched up.

“Danzo-sama?” 

And then his hand slipped away, falling to the ground.

.

* * *

Of what little Shisui knew of Danzo-sama, the ANBU commander, he often came by to have tea with his grandfather. He was often quiet and withdrawn. They would talk of the old days, and Shisui—raised to be respectful—felt like he didn’t want to intrude in their space. He’d go play with Itachi. 

Shisui stared at his outstretched palm, and then he glanced at his Grandfather’s back, who was silent. He then looked back at the grave. The man took a fatal blow for him. His last words were to ask him to hold out a palm towards him.

“It means the will of fire,” Kagami said slowly, after he heard Shisui’s account. “Our sensei taught us what it means.” 

And Shisui glanced some distance away where an empty grave of Grandfather’s sensei lay, and it was littered with cherry blossoms. Grandfather liked to visit her grave now and then, and Shisui used to toddle after him. Everytime he did, there were fresh flowers. 

“Like… your teammates are your family?” Shisui asked slowly. 

Grandfather smiled at him. He put a hand on his head, and he ruffled his hair. 

“Yes, Shisui.” 

Seven year old Shisui felt like they passed on something very important, and he should always remember it.


	2. Chapter 2

“Father, did you just get home?” his daughter called out from inside.

"Yes," Kagami replied. He walked inside to find her laying the table, and she was cooking up a storm. His daughter Naori hummed happily. 

“Shisui’s new team is coming over,” she said. “I think he told you? They should be here shortly!” 

That’s right, he thought. His grandson had a genin team, and he’d taken leave from the Fire Daimyo’s squad to return to the village. 

“How are they?” he asked his daughter tentatively.

“Hilarious,” she said. “The clan-head’s son, the Hokage’s son and a girl who’s kind of a spit-fire! They’ve all got him running around and worn out, and they have a lot of spunk and energy in them. Shisui’s not had much of a challenge in a long time!” 

He smiled. It was just like the three of them when they were younger. 

“I mean you would think that being the Fire Daimyo’s elite guard would mean he had a more of a hard time, but apparently, all the challenge they had was fighting each other. So I guess being a jounin-sensei is more challenging!” 

“The boy hasn’t been around people his age much.”

His grandson was a genius, and he breezed through the ranks. While he was proud of him, it was not much of a childhood, and he’d always been around people older than him for training. 

“Right? Remember when he’d flash step around the house so much, before I made it a rule! He was one _plucky_ kid.” 

He heard the front door slide open, and Shisui entered first with a long suffering sigh. "We're home!" 

“Naruto!” he heard a young girl’s voice, and it sounded as if she smacked the back of Hokage's son’s head. “Don’t throw your shoes like that.” 

“Ouch! Sakura-chan!” 

Kagami widened his eyes a tad. 

Shisui rub the back of his head, and Sasuke glanced at the pair of them with a roll of his eye, as Naruto—their Hokage’s son—turned, and a girl, with a pink, cotton candy hair, followed the pair of them inside, apologizing for her intrusion, with annoyance on her expression.

She turned to him, looking very embarrassed.

“Oh! You must be sensei's grandpa,” she said with a bow. “Hello. My name is Haruno Sakura of Team 7! Sorry for the intrusion!"

He relaxed his face and smiled. 

“Namikaze Naruto! At your service! I'm the unbeatable ramen-eating champion, genin of Konoha, and I'm going to be future Hokage!" 

“What kind of introduction is that?” Shisui asked him as his mother clapped her hands and laughed. He smiled. 

Sasuke didn't introduce himself, on account of being here so often, but he was elbowed anyway. 

"Uchiha Sasuke," he said. "But you know that." 

Sakura narrowed her eyes at Naruto, as he laughed. 

_He had sensei’s eyes._

“Hello!” his daughter chirped with laughter. “You three must be _starving_ after all that training! Shisui, why don’t you show them where they can go get washed up for dinner?” 

They made a beeline after Shisui, and Kagami glanced at the table as his daughter laid down a few more dishes. He thought of the fact 

Shisui sighed as they took a seat. He wedged himself between the two boys. 

“No fighting,” he said. “Or I’ll make all of you do laps.” 

“This looks _wonderful!_ Thank you for having us over!” Sakura said again with a beaming smile in Naori’s direction. 

"No problem! I've been badgering Shisui to bring you three over! He got to meet your parents, so what about meeting sensei's parents too! I see Sasuke now and then, but not you two." 

It was many years, and he was almost blind, but he could make out the strangely familiar curve of her smile and he could hear the joy in her laugh. It was as if the corridors of the past had shook, and she had come back to them.

Midway through lunch, she passed him a bowl of rice with a smile. He spoke to her.

“Young Kunoichi, how is training going for you?” 

“Sensei’s been teaching me how to create genjutsu!” she said. 

“She’s got talent,” Shisui said between chewing. 

“I’ve also been doing some medical ninjutsu courses as well! They say that I have a lot of potential.” 

“Medical ninjutsu?” he asked her. 

“Yes! A bit of a hybrid,” she said. “Sensei thinks I should try new things and branch out!” 

"That's wonderful. And you, Naruto-kun?" 

“I’ve been learning how to do a rasengan with my Dad!” Naruto butted in excitedly. “I’m gunna the strongest in the whole village very soon!” 

Uchiha Sasuke scoffed. “Please, you didn’t even know what chakra natures were yesterday.” 

“Why you—” 

Shisui whapped both of them behind their heads.

“Shut up and eat already, both of you!” 

His daughter burst into a laugh.

“This house hasn’t been so lively in a while, don’t you think so, Father?” 

He smiled.

“Yes.” 

.

* * *

“I still wonder to this day what her mission was,” Danzo said when they were both standing beside the river. 

Kagami glanced at him. They were in their forties, no longer young boys, and the years had dulled the pain. It was just left with a mystery and a haunting lack of closure. Because as the years went on, little started to make sense about Sakura.

There was no clan or family they could trace her back to. She had Uzumaki Mito’s seal and healing capabilities that Tsunade later exhibited. They couldn’t find records of her _anywhere_ in the village apart from being their jounin-sensei and old mission reports that she had neatly written.

Hiruzen died shortly after Danzo, leaving the village in Uzumaki Kushina’s capable hands. She was after all, a heroine of the war. 

“I think,” Kagami told his friend. “We should not pry into matters which she would have not liked us to pry into. Some things of the past are better left untouched.” 

He simply stared at the grave.

“I would have rather they had gotten a body. But there was nothing. She doesn’t even have a family. No birth records. Nothing.”

“A traveler perhaps, who decided to join our village. A lone medic traveler looking for those in need of help, and she aided our village.”

“Maybe,” Danzo said. “Or someone… from the future.” 

Kagami glanced at him.

“Senju Tsunade has awakened her Byakugou seal,” he said. “She said it’s an Uzumaki technique. Sensei wasn’t an Uzumaki.” 

“Possibly affiliated with the Senju clan,” he said. “She could have been an Uzumaki, and she could have possibly learned their ways.” 

“Sensei’s techniques were more advanced than any of the medical world’s techniques, but she didn’t even leave behind a journal to pass on, Kagami,” Danzo said. “Senju Tsunade’s techniques match hers. She developed them herself.” 

He was silent.

“Sensei had crossed time and space,” he said. “There were things she said. Things she did.” 

He huffed a laugh, as Kagami shoved his hands inside his pockets.

“Sometimes I wonder, when she looked at me like that... just _what_ kind of person did I end up becoming in her timeline?” 

Kagami watched him hold out a hand towards the sunset, and he spread his fingers, as if he was making to grab it.

“Was I a monster? Was I someone you were trying to save, Sensei?” 

.

* * *

Kagami had outlived his team. He was a retired Academy teacher, and while his clansmen thought he had good talents which could be put to use elsewhere, Kagami found a home watching young shinobi grow. 

In contrast, Hiruzen became Hokage. Danzo became ANBU Commander. 

That night, as he got ready for bed, he looked up at the ceiling thinking of sunlit days when he was a boy, and they were a team together, surrounded by Sakura-sensei. With Sakura-sensei, they felt invincible. It felt like they could take on the world.

She was so strong. 

He was a young shinobi then. He was naive, and he hadn’t seen the horrors of the Uchiha-Senju war which his older cousins had seen. He was born in the village. He was born in an era of peace. 

“Danzo, you were right,” he thought. “Maybe Sensei, a time-traveller of sorts, who had left behind her family, found her family in us. She changed things. She tampered with time, and she died… to save the village.” 

He’d never told the others this, because neither Hiruzen nor Danzo had a very good opinion of their Hokage. But he remembered seeing Madara-sama, before he died in the war, standing at her grave.

It was a bit more complicated, he thought. 

“I hope you’re resting well, wherever you are. Leave the rest to us.” 

And. 

“Your brats are growing up well. They resent me, of course. But I don’t think they are too off the mark. I sent you to your death. I could have done something myself, but you were one stubborn woman." 

.

* * *

And this version of his sensei remembered nothing. She was an intelligent girl with a talent for medical ninjutsu and genjutsu, according to Shisui. Her parents were retired from the force, and they started a business. She was a bit of a paper ninja. A bit of a bookworm. She read a lot. That didn't change, he thought, as he remembered his sensei with some scroll or the other while they trained. 

What desperate situation caused her to resort to such measures, he wondered. Or perhaps it was not willingly, either. 

Today, she was standing on the sidelines with Shisui, and they were using the Uchiha training grounds today, while Sasuke and Naruto fought.

“Grandfather?” Shisui asked him as he was walking over to them. “What are you doing here?” 

“I was taking a walk,” he said with a smile.

“To the training grounds?” Shisui asked him. Kagami walked over to them. 

“I wanted to see the young shinobi of yours. Your mother told me you were here,” he said. He watched Naruto and Sasuke fight with an amused look. “They seem lively today as well.” 

Naruto was yelling at Sasuke from across the training grounds. 

“Did you know that Hiruzen and Danzo used to fight as well?” he said. “A lot and over everything.” 

“You’ve said, Grandfather,” Shisui said with a huff of laughter. “Oh, Grandfather used to be on the same squad as the Third and the former ANBU Commander,” he said as an aside to Sakura.

“Oh cool!” 

He smiled. 

“Young Kunoichi, hold up your hand,” he said. Shisui widened his eyes as she did it.

He matched his gnarly old fingers to her smaller one. 

“An important lesson,” he said slowly. “Your team is like your family.” 

She stared at him.

“In combat, through thick and thin, and through war, the team is your family. This is what it means to be the will of fire.” 

It probably didn’t make a lot of sense to a young generation of shinobi, he thought. They didn’t fight through a war where they needed to have each other’s backs. But Sakura seemed to understand him a little, and she looked up at him very seriously, much like sensei did, and she gave him a very firm nod. For a brief moment, he thought it was her, till she spoke again with a smile. 

“Thank you for the lesson." 

He smiled back.


End file.
